Remember the Broken Windows Theory of crime prevention? In short, the idea is that allowing low-level crimes and signs of disorder encourages more and more serious crime. So enforcing the law and enforcing low-level infractions and smacking criminals doing low-level offenses helps deter more major crimes from occurring.
The theory worked.
The City of Ann Arbor doesn't like this theory. Per their beliefs, stopping criminals committing low-level crimes is apparently racist.
The Detroit Free Press: Ann Arbor adopts ban on select traffic stops to help build trust with minority population
Ann Arbor City Council unanimously approved an ordinance banning certain traffic stops, in an effort to build trust with the city's minority population.
Under the new law, police officers can no longer pull over drivers for equipment violations like tinted windows, a chipped windshield or loud exhaust.
So now, these low-level violations of the law will be ignored in Ann Arbor, allegedly because minorities are more likely to have cars with tinted windows, a chipped windshield or loud exhaust.
Citing an extensive body of research, the ordinance points to the disparate outcomes of traffic stops that Black, Indigenous and people of color experience — making interactions with police, even for minor infractions, laced with trauma.
The risks and trauma associated with traffic stops for Black people and people of color outweigh any potential safety benefits, according to the Urban Institute, and they instead create a tension between community members and those sworn to protect. Traffic stops neither increase trust in police or people's perceived sense of safety among their neighbors.
We will note that traffic stops, for quite valid reasons, such as these equipment violations, are excellent starting points to catch criminals traveling back and forth as they commit crimes -- and thus they actually lower the victimization of Black, Indigenous and people of color by criminals.
We'll also note if you have trauma from being in a traffic stop, you're either getting it as a result of resisting arrest, which is on you, no matter what color you are, or you simply lack the emotional resilience to be driving a 4,000 plus pound vehicle on the road.
But the City of Ann Arbor has now decreed that they will ignore minor crimes in the name of social justice and progressiveness. Expect Ann Arbor to see a rise in broken windows as a result, and a rise in crime - which I am sure they will be completely surprised about as a result.
3 comments:
Stop making sense, you're countering the 'narrative'...
It never made sense to me, allowing minor criminal behavior to flourish in low income areas, since most of this type of criminal behavior is done to other minorities. Not thinking about traffic stops, but things like B+E's, strong arm robberies, purse snatching, drug sales, etc.
So many cities are just ignoring these criminal behaviors, just because they don't know how to handle them, or they are just giving up on them. I can't really just single out Ann Arbor on this since so very many of the other Democratic controlled cities have taken the same route of basically giving up on crime fighting, almost as if just fighting it is too much of a pain.
Old NFO: Yep, but the false narrative continues chugging right along.
pigpen51: They've given up on fighting crime because criminals are one of their key constituents. That and I'm beginning to suspect they have deals with or are land developers/speculators trying to deliberately to devalue property so it can be bought up and redeveloped for cheap.
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